How might we shift our relationship to resources?
As we interrogate the roots of racism, we must acknowledge the relationship between capitalism and racism and imagine new ways of relating to resources.
“To be truly transformative we need to work toward filling the spiritual void left by an economy based on individualism, consumption, and exploitative waged labor.”
Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan
Sample Agenda for Shifting Our Relationship to Resources
As you gather with your team or group, the agenda below can serve as a template that you are encouraged to refine and adapt to your needs.
1. Check-in:
- Read Faylita Hicks’ poem “Before Moving to Austin,” which can be found at the bottom of their story, A Century of Disg(race)
- In small groups, reflect on what the piece evokes in you. What does it say about how we use resources as people and in our cities/institutions? What might a new version of this poem read like after anti-racist transformations in our cities?
2. Small group discussions:
- What are the ways resources are organized around your work? What shifts are needed? - Who benefits from current resource organization + allocation, and how do they wield their power through governance? - What are the underlying cultural assumptions, e.g., how do white supremacy, consumerism, and patriarchy play out in your work? How do other specific cultural assumptions prop up the system you’re discussing? - What resources are already in communities to support the resource shifts needed?
3. Share-out: How did folks in the different small groups experience the discussion about shifting resources? Are there any a-ha moments or next steps to lift up?
Resources
More resources for identifying manifestations of racism and undoing racism
Undoing Racism
Racism is the single most critical barrier to building effective coalitions for social change. Racism has been consciously and systematically erected, and it can be undone only if people understand what it is, where it comes from, how it functions, and why it is perpetuated. (PISAB)
RESOURCES
- The Social Construction of Race
- Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color
- Where we stand, bell hooks – preface, introduction, chapter 1: making the personal political: class in the family
- Excerpt from Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America PUTTING IT IN PRACTICE
- The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House
- How To Do Intersectionality
- Critical Race Theory (CRT) Decision Making Toolkit
Anti-Racism is one practice for undoing racism.
Manifestations of Racism
Acts of racism are supported by institutions and are nurtured by societal practices that reinforce and perpetuate racism. (PISAB)
RESOURCES
- Just Say Black
- Oliver, Melvin L.&Thomas M. Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality, Routledge, 1997.
- Robinson, Randall, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, Plume, 2000.
- Building Economy for People and Planet
- Environmental Racism
- Indigenous People and the Environment
- Tools for Ending Racism in the Environmental Movement
- Supporting Indigenous Leadership
- "Connecting Racism and Care of the Environment" by Alysia Tate
- "Racism and Care of the Environment" by Berta Ramos-Ramirez
PUTTING IT IN PRACTICE
Racial Capitalism is one manifestation of racism.